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02/09/2015
A real estate broker in our area, Nick Peters, sent out a wonderful post in this month's newsletter. I thought your readers might like it. - Jules
Recently I was watching 16-year-old boy play soccer. I LOVE watching sports and love watching him play. But that day, it was hot; really hot. No shade anywhere. You could hear yourself and the other parents sweating. I was more concerned about shade and water than watching my boy.
Generally, our group of dedicated parents is pretty quiet. We chat, but we aren't yellers about the game. This is in part because our coach sometimes dons a shirt that simply says: "THEY PLAY. I COACH. YOU CHEER." Succinct, huh? Therefore, our sideline tends to be a quiet, respectful place.
One family often brings their son Karl whose younger brother is on the team; he is always in a special wheelchair. Karl - not his real name - seems to have a fairly serious condition. It is clear he has multiple issues. After being near him many times over the season, it was my impression he was pretty unaware of his surroundings, and wasn't able to communicate in anything other than jerky movements, and guttural sounds. If Karl got really noisy, one of his parents would calmly shift over and do something that seemed to soothe him. Sometimes, I noticed, it was to adjust his headphones that were often over his ears. I assumed he liked music.
One day, while we were all quietly watching the game, Karl started moving about in his chair and making very loud grunts and shrieks. To be honest, it startled me at first. I wasn't ready for it. My guess is everyone nearby also noticed his wild gestures or loud sounds. As expected, his mom casually stepped over to him and did something with his music player that instantly calmed Karl down. I asked her what she did. "Oh, I am sorry about the noise," she said. "Karl gets really excited when a song comes on that he loves. I turned it down. He'll be quieter now."
This is one thing about me: I have a HUGE soft spot for any special needs person, child or adult. I am sure it stems from my 13 years in the Autistic/special needs community. At that moment I cared a lot more about Karl being happy than anything else, so I nicely insisted to his mom that she turn his music back up. For a precious moment, she looked at me, maybe not sure I was serious. She probably hasn't heard that kind of request in a while, if ever. But I was serious. If a cacophony of grunts and shrieks is what happiness sounds like, then I wanted to hear more. Deep down, I think we all live for small moments, brief ones, sometimes lasting only a few seconds. It doesn't take long for truth to be realized, or for two people to "get" what is happening, or for many people to hear, for maybe the first time, a different sound of happiness. You know what I mean?
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